Talk:The Measure of a Man (Star Trek: The Next Generation)

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A late 17th-early 18th century rabbi, Zvi Ashkanazi, asked "Can a golem be a member of a minyan?" A golem is an artificially created intelligent life form, and a minyan is ten or more adult male Jews gathered for prayer. Considered by itself, the question seems silly, but what is really being asked is "Is an artificially created intelligent being really human?" That has been a recurring question in speculative fiction ever since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and would become a very real question if we were to develop an artificial intelligence that could pass the Turing Test. Rabbi Ashkanazi's answer, by the way, was "no", based on some technicalities in the rules governing minyans. JHobson3 (talk) 16:24, 9 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't this a tad bit of a fictional slippery slope? The Doctor in voyager was labled a human too. Will the sex holograms that are in Quark's be considered people too?Fentoro 05:07, 10 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This episode is one of several which painted a bleak picture of the state of civil rights in the Federation -- inadvertantly, I presume. It raised the question of whether a commissioned officer in Starfleet could be vivisected against his will, and then took most of an hour to figure out the answer. --wwoods 23:03, 11 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I see this episode as presenting the clearest picture of the best nature of the Federation.
In the Star Trek universe, only the Federation is shown as capable of making such a leap of a moral imagination to conclude that a artificially intelligent machine of Data's sophistication is in effect a sentient being.
What I like to say is that the episode, The Best of Both Worlds showed the willingness of the characters to defend the Federation, but The Measure of a Man showed why the Federation is worth defending. --User:Kchishol1970
Well, the Borg might be capable of such a leap. :-)
More seriously, I don't remember anyone refusing to accept Data as a sapient being. But that's my point -- that having been established long before the series began, they still have to consider whether Data has the right to choose not to be damaged by a scientist who thinks he might learn something cool. They go around and around before Guinan points out what was obvious to me: it's like slavery all over again.
They came --> <-- this close to another Dred Scott decision holding that androids are "beings of an inferior order, ... and so far inferior that they had no rights which the [meat-based lifeform] was bound to respect." And this, as I said, was despite the fact that this wasn't J. Random Android, but a brother officer in Starfleet with years of distinguished service.
--wwoods 01:32, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I disagree again. Please note that the only Starfleet Officers who question Data's status as a sapient being are the JAG Officer, who is depicted as a legalistic hardass and the scientist who doesn't respect that idea anyway. Everyone else, especially Picard and Riker, instantly rallies to Data's defense. It was left unsaid, but Picard could have appealed the case higher up if the judgement went against Data and he likely would have faced more sympathetic judges. --User:Kchishol1970
As I said, I don't remember anyone refusing to accept Data as a sapient being. Even more than that, he had been accepted by everyone except Whatshisname as a legally competent person. Nevertheless, that long-established status doesn't seem to guarantee him the civil rights that you or I would take for granted.
Straining for an analogy, suppose that some scientist wanted to get a court order entitling him to take biopsies without permission from several, say, Arab-Americans, because he might learn something-or-other of interest. How far would he get?
[The indentation of my earlier comments looks flaky, for some reason.]
--wwoods 22:35, 15 Jul 2004 (UTC)
The whole story is a bit inconsistent, indeed. Apparently Data was never legally recognised as a lifeform, yet Starfleet let him join, awarded him decorations, etc. I would assume that his status was just never truly considered throughout his career. Yet he was legally considered a mere machine upon closer inspection, which either means that even non-lifeforms can gain ranks and be awarded decorations (gotta ask Mr. Tricorder about that one) or you can at least do that as long as nobody considers your status.
I would assume that the most "canon" explanation would be that Starfleet didn't require anyone to be legally recognised as a lifeform in order to join, thus creating the paradox when Data's status was questioned (arguably, for the first time). They probably later changed that. — Ashmodai (talk · contribs) 16:42, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I found this story a little futile. I obviously see what they were trying to address, but the logic just doesn't work! The descision was made to allow Data to join the Federation of his own free will. This already defines his right to self-determination. And the idea that, after joining of his own free will, he should suddenly become the property of Starfleet makes no sense whatsoever. I still enjoyed it though ;-) 85.22.10.36 18:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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